Fish Production Dwindling in Karbi Anglong

6f/S/AS/0

THE ASSAM TRIBUNE – 01-09-2006

Fish production dwindling in Karbi Anglong

From Kamal Kumar Brahma

HOWRAGHAT, Aug 31 – Fish production in Karbi Anglong district is dwindling due to negligence of the fishery department even though the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC) has taken steps to augment production.

The district has around 610 hectares of water area which include cultivable fishery tanks and uncultivated tanks of individuals, community fishery tanks and departmental fish farms etc.

Moreover, there are more than 185 hectares of water area in the form of rivers, rivulets including few beels and hilly streams and swamps. According to official reports, the production of fish in the district is approximately 2600 metric tonnes only annually, which is far below the normal requirement of fishes 5500 metric tones annually.

As a result, due to the shortfall of edible fishes, the people of the district are compelled to purchase fishes at higher rates and some brokers are raking in profits by importing fishes from near by districts or from the States like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal.

The only eco-hatchery project of Ranaima, Kheroni which was capable of producing fish seeds to the tune of 18-20 million per year, but now its production has nosedived as the project itself has been left uncared for. The farm has an area of 23 hectares out of which the beel area inside the farm is 15 hectares and the remaining 8 hectares is covered by paddy-cum –fish culture tanks, brooders, stocking and nursery tanks and air breathing fish culture tanks.

The farm’s condition has deteriorated due to not taking of necessary steps by the department for renovation of the tank-bed to make the farm productive again. Besides the Ranaima fish farm, another new farm with hatchery provision at Silonijan under Bokajan Development Block was proposed which is expected to be completed during the current year.

There are altogether 14 fishery farms in the district and another four fish farms are managed departmentally and two are leased out. The remaining fish farms have deteriorated since long and these need complete renovation to be productive again. It is worth mentioning here that there are various schemes in the department which have been designed for the fish cultivators through which the financially weak people can get a income source.

There are many places in hill areas as well as in plain lands of the district suitable for fisheries, and the department has constructed a good number of community tanks but the end result is that the schemes have been unsuccessful in terms of fish culture as the surrounding didn’t get fishes for their consumptionwhile their was no improvement in their economic condition either.

So far, 175 fishery tanks have been constructed by the Fishery Department and 133 hectares of water area created for different community tank committees. But no fruitful result has been obtained from them till date due to the lack of fish seed farmers and growers.

Only 12 small fish farmers practice fish seed growing and selling of fish seed by stocking fish spawns which are brought from nearby seed producing centre, Nilbagan of Nagaon district but this centre cannot meet the demand of fish seeds in the district. The privately-owned fisheries in the district produce approximately 800-900 kilograms of fishes per hectare but this rate of production is far bellow the normal rate of 2200-2500 kilogram of fishes per hectare.